I’d like to say that we’ve gotten good at cleaning out a house after repeating the process several times in the last couple of years. But I can’t. I’ve been staring at the same stuff for weeks now, wondering which box to put my collection of extra phone cords into, or even if it belongs in a box. Maybe a pile of similar stuff. Stuff’s expensive, you know. Of course you don’t really need phone cords on a boat but the second I throw something away it’s the old dance, retail on one end and land fill on the other. It’s a kind of purgatory, paring down to live on a boat before you own a boat.

Now I don’t think you would call us Schulzes hoarders but while cleaning out my Dad’s house I found 29 hammers. I think you could say a prudent man might want something a little north of five, what with different weights and handles and such. I added a nice American hickory-handled beauty and a mini sledge to my personal collection. (There’s nothing so useful as a mini persuader, even on a boat.) And don’t think I’m alone in this. Marce, my sainted wife, added her mother’s cute oak-handled tack hammer, with a head so narrow and svelte that I have yet to make contact with anything more substantial than my fingers. And you’re going to throw that away? Cant do it.

So progress is slow, our friends are beginning to hide when they see us coming and I’m pretty sure that we caused a little friction in some family units due to our generosity.